6.5m Wide Load on Eyre Hwy

If you look at the video you should see the pilot moving over and waving me on around the load. It may not be visible with the lower resolution on YouTube. My Adult Supervisor insists that I turn the audio off on the windscreen camera.

You are correct, even road trains were pulled over into the dirt on the side of the road. I am glad I did not come across 8.5m loads.

These 'mega loads' are moved at night, as main roads WA and WA Pol can and do effectively shut down several hundred Kilometres of highway between certain hours ~ usually when 'mere mortals' must be asleep.

The 'mega load' convoy moves at night and parks up during the day light hours unless they have reached the designated delivery point.

One very serious consideration when moving off the tar seal to allow any wide load clear passage is the hidden culverts that can easily tear the under carriage out from under a vehicle or caravan, these death traps are now being marked with black and white roadside markers. not all culverts are visible especially when the 'verge vegetation' is lush.

Safe travels : Joe

Interesting comment regarding the culverts.

In MANY parts of the eastern states over the last two months we noticed under-road drains/culverts were marked with BLUE posts on both sides of the carriageway. Made them easy to distinguish.

G'day Zippo

These drains and culverts here in the inland Pilbara were actually not marked in anyway until the onslaught of heavy haulage due to what was a few years back called the 'mining boom'

In and around that 'boom' time period there were several serious incidents where culverts and drains claimed victims as such, mainly collateral damage and big stuff not getting to a destination on time, I actually witnessed a garbage truck move off the tar for a escorted wide load clobber a hidden concrete lipped culvert at speed, the garbage truck was a roadside ornament for close to a week, before it was removed.

Safe travels : Joe

I came across the same load a few days later in SA, only this time the truck was going slower and it pulled over the the right hand side of the road and it was quite easy to overtake. A more considerate truck driver this time.
Don't forget that the older you get, then the less time you have to do all of those things you want to, so you should drive faster to fit them all in!

This is one wide load that no one could pass over in the Goldfields of WA.


Cheers


Stephen

Another heads up on having a UHF...and having it turned on !!!!!!!!!
The number of people I see travelling around towing caravans and not having it on is damn near criminal. OK...if the chatter and language offends you ....go get another life....as this mostly happens nearer towns and cities...then by all means turn it off ....but turn it back on again when you get away from the crap. Also....you can turn most sets to maximum squelch too ....and this blanks out anything over about 2 k away...alright for most highway situations.
This is what truck drivers ( ie... Me and lots of others ) see and hear on the road ....so if you have a UHF fitted ...use it ...please !!!!

Cheers Keith

Yep, good reply Eagle. That's exactly what I have done on a few occasions. Pull in well behind and wait until it's safe to pass BY YOUR OWN OBSERVATIONS.
Or until the truck and convoy pull in for a break. Most of the wide loads I have come across are doing somewhere around the 80 to 90 kph.

Is the time saved really worth risking your life and the lives of your passengers over?

Cheers
Pop

Keith, regarding the UHF and having it turned on / using it . . .

One thing about modern UHF etiquette is it's hard to know just what channel people will be on.
Used to be on the old 27meg you'd call up on the call channel, then switch to a clear one for a conversation.

Now, people might be on 11 the designated call channel, but more often on 40.
They might be on 10 (4wd convoy / nat pks), or 18 (camper / cara), sometimes 29 (Pac Hwy).

Half the time people don't answer, even if they eventually admit they did hear your call, this happens in the deserts a lot for some reason.

We are talking about communicating with truck drivers, they are always on ch40.
Chris

You hit the nail on the head. When I was waved around, I was expecting a safer experience, but once I committed, I kept on. Note that the second time I passed the same load I had a much safer and less stressful experience with the driver going slower and moving to the right hand side of the road.

The experience is only as safe as the person behind the wheel can make it. Nobody makes you overtake a wide load and if the pilot waves you around your not obligated to pass until "you" .think it's safe enough and there is plenty of room to do so especially when towing a heavy van.
We also encounter lots of wide loads in the QLD coal fields, I have sat back and waited until the road was wider and suited me before I have passed more than once and I'm not usually towing anything. I have no interest in riding the rough edge of the road putting myself and passengers in unnecessary danger only to just to pull up again a few hours later down the road for a break. I would call them up and say it's ok I'm not in a hurry I wait till the road is wider thanks and pull to the left to let others pass. Sometime you even have to park up on the side of the road for half an hour or more waiting for a wide load or 2 to climb up a range.
I'm not sure what or if there is an underlying story as to why someone would post about how impatient and dangerous they can be by taking unnecessary risk on the roads when it's so easy to pull over for a break have a cuppa or something.
I really thing you statement next to you profile pic is a very accurate description and pretty ironic of how you drive while your suppose to be relaxing on a holiday good one.

Something else to remember these guys are working and are trying their best to get the wide load to it's destination as quick and safe at possible. So if they pulled over and let every vehicle pass it would mean their on the road longer than they need to be which means more impatient drivers catching up to them. I hope you, your friends haven't learnt something from this experience and reassess why your in such a hurry to get nowhere fast.

Had you of called them up they would of likely made an effort to get you past and let you know when it was safe to do so, that has usually been my experience when i have radioed trucks / pilot vehicles and asked them to let me know when it's good to get by them. The fact you sat well back behind them like you say you did, made them think you were more then happy to keep doing that and didn't want to try and get by them. These drivers have time schedules they need to try and keep to and they aren't going to continually stop at every town to let vehicles get by them, but are happy to help out with such maneuvers whilst on the go if people ask nicely and are prepared to work with them (ie:- sit back and wait till pilot says all is good to go)

Yes, I would have initiated a dialogue if hubby wanted it Rumpig, but he said not to bother. They did require a very large area to pull over and park the two wide loads and accompanying escort vehicles. A normal rest area would not have done it.

Yes Motherhen, my expectations were the same as yours; that they would move over and slow down for to clear the back log of traffic every now and then. When the pilot waved me on, that was exactly what I expected.

I just recalled another wide load that did not let traffic pass - quite some years ago. I was driving my father in law to Perth in his sedan, and we got behind a wide load heading down the Armadale hill. The load was very slow, and blocked all lanes, taking over an hour just to get down the hill, a distance of about seven kilometres. With a big backlog of traffic, they made no attempt to pull over to allow some traffic to overtake. I'm sure there were spots where the could have to allow space in one one lane. Our family were getting very concerned at our non arrival, and we had no way of contacting them.

Motherhen,

Its not permitted for safety reasons, same applies to greenmount both up n down go slow hurry up take your time.

When they head east up greenmount they will pull over at Glen Forrest allow traffic to pass them, can't comment on Albany hwy bedfordale hill.

I usually miss that section. I normally cut across from albany to brookton hwy then Ashendon toMundaring weir

In the past when loads were actually smaller than today, and before the median strip was concreted in up greenmount (late 80's?) I vaguely recall oversize did trundle up the middle allowing 1 n bit lanes clearance both sides for vehicles to pass them.

There has been of recent a few "breakdowns" both up n down greenmount, with that situation escorts pilots will block a opposing lane allowing vehicles to straddle median strip to get around or set up a bypass using local roads for light vehicles.

I was wondering the same thing. Seems a stupid manoeuvre just to let vehicles through. Although I met a bloke sometime ago who reckons he does this with his van to allow road trains to overtake so the driver doesn't have to move his steering wheel.......
He wasn't impressed when I said it was an idiotic thing to do as that put him on the wrong side of the road if anything went wrong. Vehicles shouldn't be even attempting to overtake if they can't see it's clear to go.
Most pilots are fairly good but I still use my own eyes and experience before moving out.
And I never take any notice of others flicking the indicators as a signal that it's safe.
AlanTH.

It moved over to the right hand side of the road to allow vehicles to overtake on the left so that the driver of the overtaking vehicle was closer to the load and could better judge the clearance between his vehicle and the load. Probably the most important part of the second time overtaking was the much lower speed.
Keep in mind that in front of the load was a pilot followed by a police vehicle and then the load followed by another pilot.

This is what comes to my mind.
A 6.5m wide load necessitates all oncoming vehicles to pull off the sealed pavement.
Oncoming traffic would have been told to pull over and stop on the shoulder (or a bit further) until the wide load and rear pilot vehicle had gone through.
If the wind was coming from the LHS, any dust would be to the right of the wide load, obstructing vision to the right.
Therefore they (the police escort) might have considered that the LHS, although unorthodox, was the safer option - no oncoming traffic, clear(er) vision, possibly less turbulence.
Undertaken with police direction, it was not illegal.
Cheers
Andrew

Common for them to pull right allow overtaking traffic to pass on left,allows driver of overtaking vehicle to judge distance from load.

oddest I have ever done was passing 2 x 8m wide loads through chittering valley just north of brand hwy turn off before bindoon escort closed off south bound lanes (a section where there are 4 lanes, 2 each way)

allowed us to go contra flow to get around the oversize loads.

rule #1 always be in contact either traffic escort (red n blue) or pilot (amber) on UHF 40

I've seen first hand what happens when a impatient driver tries to get around a oversize load.

Should also note some loads will only have front pilot and nothing at rear, seen small cars tucked up behind one load, driver and pilot never knew they were there until I passed and called them to advise of following traffic - yet again rule # 1 applies if you come up behind them.

Well your never to old to learn something different.
I have never seen or heard of a wide load moving to the wrong side of the road so vehicles could pass on the inside.

I, myself personally would still be a bit hesitant to do so, and would rather pull up and have a cuppa.

Cheers

Up until early this year, I'd been doing linehaul work for about 7 years, after "retiring" from station life in early 2009.

On one occasion after leaving Longreach, I caught up to an oversize and once there was no oncoming traffic, I was advised by the rear escort that the oversize would pull to the right. I then overtook them, staying in the same lane.

My take on it is this. The oversize driver can go to the edge of the bitumen, using his RH mirrors to keep all those tyres off the rough edges. The overtaking driver, in this case moi, can easily manoeuvre a 53M quad/triple past the oversize, with room to spare between the trucks and without running off the left hand edge of the bitumen.

Bob

I can understand it happening as co-operation between drivers and pilots to other big load haulers, but not a goon pulling a van putting himself on the wrong side of the road.
If directed by the cops I'll do most things, after making a final check for myself that it's safe to do so.
AlanH.

AlanTH, I would suggest you do an I.Q. test and if your score is greater than you shoe size, then do a remedial English comprehension course before you make any more embarrassing posts.

Common sense beats I.Q every time !.